Herald View: Thank you, Vinesh!

Conspiracy theories flew thick and fast, and they were certainly not beyond the pale. Vinesh Phogat’s disqualification after she’d made it to the final did smell fishy. We knew, after all, how she nearly didn’t make it to the Paris Games, how a predator ex-chief of the Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) was using his long arm to get even with her, for her temerity to call him out. Vinesh had even anticipated foul play while she was grinding away to make it to the Games.

It wasn’t so long ago that the high and mighties of the ruling party had stonewalled demands by India’s decorated wrestlers to sack then WFI president Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh and order an independent enquiry (read: free of his influence in the WFI) into charges against him of sexual abuse and intimidation, and corruption in the running of the wrestling federation.

Images of Vinesh and sister Sangeeta Phogat, Sakshi Malik and their comrade-in-arms Bajrang Punia being roughed up by the police during the protests in Delhi in early 2023 are not easy to forget — and the government’s apathy bordering on hostility harder to forgive.

So, the commiserating tweets from the Prime Minister after Vinesh’s disqualification are a bit rich — the world knows who stood with the wrestlers when they put their careers, families and personal safety at risk and who didn’t have the courage to rein in a self-styled chieftain because he was apparently too hot to handle.

His influence in the badlands of Uttar Pradesh is not in doubt — the reasons for this a story for another day — but what’s galling is that the man of the commiserating tweet, who supposedly has the kind of influence that can stop wars and alter the shape of history, did not have the gumption to confront him at the time.

Even when this predator was finally removed and the WFI reconfigured, it was to install a dummy who would do his bidding. So, do excuse our cynicism when the scribes of the PM’s X handle take the liberty to write, among other things: "Today’s setback [Vinesh’s disqualification] hurts. I wish words could express the sense of despair that I am experiencing." Really?!

But let’s return to the protagonist of this story for the ages. A skim of the reams published, both dead-tree and digital, in the aftermath of Vinesh’s disqualification suggests the rules weren’t on her side. The merit of those rules is perhaps debatable, questionable even, but there is no watertight case to make an exception to those rules while the Games are still on.

Even though at the time of writing, the Court of Arbitration for Sports (CAS) had reportedly accepted Team Vinesh’s appeal that she be awarded a joint silver; its verdict was still pending. Even Vinesh and all the millions who join her in the prayer that the CAS adjudicates favourably will hope that there is no shadow of doubt on the legitimacy of the award, if it lands on her side.

Athletes who compete at the top level, professional or amateur, trace a very large arc in a very short lifespan — depending on their sport, they peak somewhere in their 20s and have to start contemplating an afterlife in their 30s. Imagine thinking of ‘retirement’ in your 30s!

Their waiver of a ‘normal’ life, featuring the tiny indulgences — like an occasional bar of chocolate, a late party with friends, a day off, life away from the cossetting indulgence of parents that you and I might consider unexceptional — starts before they reach teenage, often much sooner.

It takes 10–15 years of a tunnel-vision pursuit at a heavy cost that their young brains can barely process. For this single-minded devotion to excellence, the least they deserve from us lesser mortals is better understanding. If not of the sport itself, which may be asking for too much, then of the steel it takes to go for it.

Vinesh’s story is all this and more — for she has seen more than her fair share of adversity — career-threatening injuries, terrible luck, trolling after defeats in big-ticket tournaments, and persistent, demeaning, dehumanising abuse from the country’s wrestling establishment.

Anyone else would have given up — and Vinesh came close on some occasions. But she picked herself up every time. This time, again, to even make it to Paris is a feat worthy of a story. Past all the hurdles and a reluctant establishment that wanted her to fail so badly it did its best to trip her up.

You’ve probably read enough already on the excruciating overnight prep — after three back-to-back bouts on 6 August — to make the weight cut-off for the 50 kg final against Sarah Hildebrandt of the US. This was to be the gold medal match, and their head-to-head record gave Vinesh a 2–0 advantage. In Round 1, she was drawn against defending champion Yui Susaki of Japan, the odds-on favourite, with an 82–0 record going into the match. Susaki had never lost till she ran into Vinesh on 6 August.

The victory that eluded Vinesh couldn’t have been any sweeter. In her case, not simply because the coveted Olympic medal, that moment on the podium when the whole world is watching, is what these athletes live for.

For Vinesh, who was thumbing her nose at establishment, which did its damnedest to lay her low, it would’ve been a ‘Take that, you!’ moment. That moment was legitimately hers, even if she was denied the last laugh. Thank you, Vinesh! You fought for more than just personal glory.